Rift Update 2.6 - Teasers and snippets

[Puremallace]

Are the changes that major from patch to patch? I've not noticed major changes to the souls I play from patch to patch (in general) that alter the way I play, but I'm a madbad casual so it's very possible that I entirely miss it.

I am not sure about you but I have fallen into the casual crowd because hey most of us that made MMO's what they are approaching 30 now. My main issues is basically going from hotfix to the next having to completely respec and learn all new rotations.

Trion has spent the last 5 major patches and christ knows how many hot fixes fucking with the same three souls in warriors (Tempest, Riftblade, Paragon).Now Ailion has given hints they are going to start screwing with tank souls yet again. I think my honest breaking points with Trion was 1.11, but I stuck with them and now I have the option of honestly still playing but treating this like a free to play game.

If you act like a amateur developer and do not address constant performance FPS issues which EVERYONE agrees is the number 1 primary issues holding back population growth in Rift, then why invest in their product. At some point somebody at Trion needs to say this modified gamebryo engine is shit and completely outdated.

[gonterf]

At some point somebody at Trion needs to say this modified gamebryo engine is shit and completely outdated.

See, I'm sure they realize that. The problem with engines is that they're kinda integral to the functioning of the game, and except for relatively minor changes, there isn't a whole lot they 'can' do. The cost to write a new engine would far exceed what they could possibly bear. Moreover, because they licensed the engine rather than building it themselves, I imagine they don't have any engineers on staff who are familiar enough with the engine to make big changes. They did have someone implementing multi-core support, but they probably needed to spend weeks at least familiarizing themselves with the inner workings of the engine before they could even begin, and the risk for hard crashes would be astronomical. They should have done their research and gone with a better engine 7+ years ago, but at this point their hands really are pretty tied. All that isn't to say that they shouldn't be throwing everything they have at the performance issues, just that I personally get frustrated when people talk about game engines as if it's something that you can just swap out.

Analogy: Building a house. If there's minor flaws in the foundation, you might be able to patch them up. If there's something fundamentally wrong with the foundation whereby it just won't support the house you want to build, you either build a different house or you tear the whole thing down and start again.

Disclaimer, I am neither a software engineer nor a construction worker. I do have a pretty solid grasp of the inner workings of games from years of being indirectly involved with the games industry though.

[Fencers]

Changing Rift's current engine is just making Rift 2 or whatever.

Trion are probably not going to redo the engine. No big changes are likely to ever happen to the engine. Trion made a decision to go with the current game engine during development for whatever monetary reasons we are not privy to.

That's all there is to be said. Like it's not even something that should be considered because changing the engine is like making a new game. At that point one is wishing for the game they want Rift to be, rather than the one which was made.

[Lathais]

I honestly have no confidence they will add multicore support. At first, it was planned for 2.3. Then they said it will come with 2.4. And now we are on 2.5, and no word of any multicore support.

It's depressing to drop down to 12fps in CQ while one core is 95% while the other 7 are Idle.

- - - Updated - - -



This

After Russ and all the other guys left, Rift lost every ounce of innovation that made it great in vanilla.

What interesting features did Trion add vanilla?


PA System
Solo/Duo Dungeons
Onslaughts
Conquest
World Events for each patch
Mercenary System
LFG Tool
Cross-Faction
PvP Rifts[/LIST]


What new features have been added to the game in the past year?


Strongholds?
Uhh....?

The simple reason so many are seeing rift as stale is because Trion has failed to add anything interesting in the past year. In vanilla, everything was new. The whole invasion/zone event system was new and shiny. It was awesome, no other game had really done anything like it. They added an alternate advancement system, 10 man raids, PvP Rifts, Conquest, Alternate Warfronts, solo/duo dungeons and many other features that made sure we always had something different, and exciting to partake in. I can't recall a single feature that trion has added to the game since SL that has been innovative. No real new features, just more content for the old features that we have been doing for years.




I don't think anyone is saying that. No one is denying the fact that the game is doing well, and still has a healthy population. It still is a great game, and the content that they release is still some of the best in the market, but what we are saying is that the game has lost innovation. It has lost that spark that made it was it was. It has lost what made Rift, Rift. And I think it's hard to argue against that.

Wy would they add more when there is already too much? It is completely understandable that a game, especially an MMO, in the first year is incomplete. Those features they added made it complete. Now it is. You want them to add more things when there is already too much to do. Wow.

[beanman12345]

Well I just started playing rift a few days ago and want to comment on population. There are only 7 servers, at least on the American side, and they are all medium to high population at anytime, but there are alot of people actually on those servers playing. And I don't mean just waiting for queues in the cities, there are people actually out in the world, doing rifts, questing, running around, at all levels too. If it is dying, it sure feels alot more alive then some other mmo's that have enormous population numbers but you never see anyone. Seems pretty alive and healthy to me, reminds me of vanilla/bc wow. As for the update, I do hope they add support for multi core like others here. More FPS the better.

[Rajadog20]

Wy would they add more when there is already too much? It is completely understandable that a game, especially an MMO, in the first year is incomplete. Those features they added made it complete. Now it is. You want them to add more things when there is already too much to do. Wow.

I guess there being "too much to do" is completely subjective, but I have never heard anyone say there is too much to do. You are the first one sir.

Its simple psychology. The more you do an activity, the more repetitive and less fun it becomes. They can add as much content as they want, but if its more of the same stuff we've been doing for years, more people will get bored with it quicker.

The way that vanilla Rift got around this is by adding something completely different almost every patch to keep us entertained. I was never able to play games like WoW for too long due to the fact that I would get bored of doing the same stuff every day and nothing different was released. What I, and countless others loved about Rift, was there was always something new and exciting coming soon. It was never the same old stuff we've been doing for years, there was always something different to do.

You may think that there is too much to do, but I have reached the point that when I log in, I have no interest in doing any of the activities because i've done it all until my mind is numb to it. So there obviously isn't enough to keep me interested.

So, yes, I do want them to continually add to the game. Isn't that the point of an MMO?

[gonterf]

I don't really think 'too much to do' is something that can happen in an MMO; the magic of the MMO is in its size and freedom. That being said, there 'is' such a thing as a developer being spread too thin, as we saw with the release of SL and the vast amounts of empty space in Ashora/Morban. I don't personally think that many more systems would improve Rift, but I feel like many of the systems they do have are lacking in longevity. For example, chronicles are great the first time you run them, but because there's no risk of failure and nothing towards which players can strive, that's as long as they last. Hardmode chronicle bosses change that up a bit, and it's a huge step in the right direction, but it's not really enough on its own to give the feature life. Meanwhile, the simplest system in the game - Artifact Collecting - can keep people entertained for months simply because there's so much of it, while raiding keeps people coming back because of the tiered reward structure.

[Tarien]

I don't really think 'too much to do' is something that can happen in an MMO; the magic of the MMO is in its size and freedom. That being said, there 'is' such a thing as a developer being spread too thin, as we saw with the release of SL and the vast amounts of empty space in Ashora/Morban. I don't personally think that many more systems would improve Rift, but I feel like many of the systems they do have are lacking in longevity. For example, chronicles are great the first time you run them, but because there's no risk of failure and nothing towards which players can strive, that's as long as they last. Hardmode chronicle bosses change that up a bit, and it's a huge step in the right direction, but it's not really enough on its own to give the feature life. Meanwhile, the simplest system in the game - Artifact Collecting - can keep people entertained for months simply because there's so much of it, while raiding keeps people coming back because of the tiered reward structure.

Nice post, definitely hits the nail on the head.

[Deleted]

According to one of their blog posts, it's the most engaged in activity in the game >.>

I think they personally killed Artifact Hunting when they released Storm Legion, tons and tons of sets with nothing 'special' about them or no special reward, for example entire Zone Artifact sets used to offer really cool pets or cosmetic items and they offered nothing in Storm Legion.

Also another reason people used to hunt Artifacts was to get the Zone Wide Achievements completed... In Storm Legion the reward for completing a Zone Wide Achievement is like 100k Planar exp, that's like 1/8th of what I'd get for doing a random expert!!

[Absintheminded]

Yeah - watch my Rift series - I'm getting 30fps on my 3.4~3.8Ghz Haswell with 780ti - most of the time slowing down to less than 20fps in events. I know they're working on it, but damn... it's frustrating.

You sir, just made me feel so much better about my 20fps.

[Deleted]

When is new conquest coming?=)

[Slipmat]

Another 500MB+ Update dropped on the PTS (Public Test Shard) yesterday with absolutely tons of stuff for Update 2.6

There's simply too much added to go through everything or to even find everything myself so i'll be linking also an excellent site from Jonus, who updates new stuff very often

First off, no Update is complete with a new World Event, this time we finally get to "close" the Crucia storyline with an epic Air Saga quest chain



Ignore the dates on the tracker, but the quests start from Cyril in Sanctum, if a Guardian, and from Asha Catari in Meridian, if a Defiant. This applies to low levels at around level 30 or so, level 60's will pick up a 'breadcrumb' in Tempest Bay which also sends you to Cyril or Asha



A familiar face returns in IPP....



Some of the achievements for completing various steps of the Air Saga got added



With the Crucia story "finished" off we need a new "baddie" and it seems we'll have a new female villian

Meet Lady Glasya Alaviax, Duchess of Suffering, Commander of the Bloodfire Army



This brings us nicely to what 2.6 seems to be mostly about, an invasion by the Bloodfire Army, there's a lot of new Strongholds, zone events, achievements leading to the Bloodfire Army, as an example of some of them





A new structure has appeared just outside Sanctum and one outside Meridian
which when you complete a zone event and get a drop,this will allow you to access the portal and you'll get ported into Infernal Dawn where you get to fight various bosses





There will be level 15, level 30 and level 60 versions of these and in case little Jimmy solo pew pew hero thinks he gets to roflstomp level 15 bosses at level 60, you will be auto-mentored down, and about time!

Jonus has a lot more info on the Bloodfire Strongholds and bosses as the tsting happened well past midnight for me so i was asleep

clicky clicky >>> http://riftgrate.com/2014/01/17/pts-...e-strongholds/


It's not all about Invasions and Strongholds, plenty of other stuff has been added like Unstable Artifacts zone events where you "tag" it by collecting the new blue unstable artifacts in the zone in question, example



There's plenty of 'fluff' rewards added for collecting sets of these artifacts including a choice of planar squirrel mounts



This is how the Fire mount, Flametail, looks when you preview it:



Once again Jonus goes into far more detail than i found out so

clicky clicky >>> http://riftgrate.com/2014/01/17/pts-...er-update-2-6/

Finally a quality of life change some of us looked for, nothing special but makes it easier for new players to now see just how big Rift really is as you can access it from a new map that pops up at every porticulum master




So far Update 2.6 is heading towards been a serious content patch, 2014 for Rift is off to a good start, expected sometime in late February hopefully

[Slipmat]

Here's a look inside the Bloodfire Stronghold which some of you might recognise as been set inside parts of Infernal Dawn, where Maelforge and Laethys were imprisoned

This will be a 5-man instance which only opens up after you complete a Bloodfire Zone Event and obtain a 'core' key which allows you access. Inside, you will be auto-mentored down to fight various bosses at level 15, level 30 and level 60.

Each boss drops a 'burning Core' which you can use to 'feed' and level up a new Magma mount, much the same as leveling up a Raptor mount in a past World Event with Dragon essence

[theWocky]

I've been watching your videos . Your pc is beast compared to mine and we're kinda at the same fps range . Only thing is that mine in 20 man warfronts goes to 10-15 fps . Annoying as hell .

My Girlfriend's nVidia 650 with a haswell 3.4GHz B85 mainboard was a bit faster than my 660ti 3rd gen 3.4GHz i5. In the last few months, I've done several upgrades (had 2 x different main-boards) and now have a haswell i5 3.4GHz "K" version as well, but there is no real difference between the 660ti, the 660ti in SLi or the 780ti - all ran at about the same speed.

I upgrade +/- ever 3 to 6 months - main-boards, CPU's, etc.

I am going to be buying an i3 3.4GHz haswell soon as a general work PC and probably going to be dumping an entry-level 7-series nvidia card in there. pretty sure the performance is going to be about the same. Only time Rift performs better is if you overclock the CPU a bit - as long as your video card is "adequate".

[IIamaKing]

See, I'm sure they realize that. The problem with engines is that they're kinda integral to the functioning of the game, and except for relatively minor changes, there isn't a whole lot they 'can' do. The cost to write a new engine would far exceed what they could possibly bear. Moreover, because they licensed the engine rather than building it themselves, I imagine they don't have any engineers on staff who are familiar enough with the engine to make big changes. They did have someone implementing multi-core support, but they probably needed to spend weeks at least familiarizing themselves with the inner workings of the engine before they could even begin, and the risk for hard crashes would be astronomical. They should have done their research and gone with a better engine 7+ years ago, but at this point their hands really are pretty tied. All that isn't to say that they shouldn't be throwing everything they have at the performance issues, just that I personally get frustrated when people talk about game engines as if it's something that you can just swap out.

Analogy: Building a house. If there's minor flaws in the foundation, you might be able to patch them up. If there's something fundamentally wrong with the foundation whereby it just won't support the house you want to build, you either build a different house or you tear the whole thing down and start again.

Disclaimer, I am neither a software engineer nor a construction worker. I do have a pretty solid grasp of the inner workings of games from years of being indirectly involved with the games industry though.

I get your analogy, however, you can jack up a house and repour a foundation.

[Syce]

well, looks like they are adding in PVP Bounties now. Though i have a feeling they are for just warfronts, so basically kill someone or kill 10 other players in a warfront to complete the bounty. instead of just individual player bounties(which i think would be better imo)

[Lathais]

I get your analogy, however, you can jack up a house and repour a foundation.

That is also prohibitively expensive to most people. You will not get the money you put into fixing a foundation back out of it when you go to sell it. It actually lowers the value of the house as you must disclose foundation repair which most people are leery of and will not purchase a house that has had foundation repairs. There are however, investors that will buy your house with foundations issues and turn it into a rental. So while yes, you can jack up a house and repair the foundation, your average homeowner will not. Same thing here with Trion. Your average game developer will not do it. If someone like EA came along and bought them though, we'd have an entirely different story.(well EA is probably a bad example as they kill games, but hopefully you get my point)

[Slipmat]

We have a date, Update 2.6: Dream Weaver will drop next Wednesday, February the 12th and 13th for Europe

http://community.riftgame.com/en/201...-dream-weaver/

http://massively.joystiq.com/2014/02...new-budgie-mo/

[Khelendros]

I am not sure about you but I have fallen into the casual crowd because hey most of us that made MMO's what they are approaching 30 now. My main issues is basically going from hotfix to the next having to completely respec and learn all new rotations.

Trion has spent the last 5 major patches and christ knows how many hot fixes fucking with the same three souls in warriors (Tempest, Riftblade, Paragon).Now Ailion has given hints they are going to start screwing with tank souls yet again. I think my honest breaking points with Trion was 1.11, but I stuck with them and now I have the option of honestly still playing but treating this like a free to play game.

If you act like a amateur developer and do not address constant performance FPS issues which EVERYONE agrees is the number 1 primary issues holding back population growth in Rift, then why invest in their product. At some point somebody at Trion needs to say this modified gamebryo engine is shit and completely outdated.

Yes redoing the game entirely from the ground up is a viable option. Definitely.

[Myray]

and still no sign of the new conquest map that should hit "somewhere after 2.5 release" ><